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'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

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Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#41

Post by zxcdw »

hga wrote: post #39
baddox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wish he would finish the sentence by filling in the blank: "The government is constrained in what it can do by _______." As soon as you realize that "government" is the only thing filling the blank, you should realize how silly (and scary) the whole scenario is.

Ah, but you can also fill in the blank with "the well armed populace". Maybe not anyone you know, but at least half of the nation, 300+ million guns and more every day. Heck, 2/3rds of the nation lives in shall issue concealed carry regimes, with well over 8 million licenses granted. This puts constraints on a would be out of control government. Let us hope we don't have to file a claim on this insurance policy.

Please remember that these concepts apply outside US too, where gun ownership and constitution defending the citizens aren't as available. This is one of the reasons why the "but we have guns to take 'em down if needed" is not very applicable argument when talking about these issues. The other being that the means to achieve influence and share of power should be political, and not rely on violence.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#42

Post by kaoD »

temp453463343 wrote: post #32
zxcdw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge problem with a surveillance state. Everyone has something which you can use against them. This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail. Otherwise not. Possible implications to politic balance are astounding.

"This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail." Except that's not the reality. The reality is that if Obama really really hates someone and wants to make their life miserable, the most he can do it make it hard for him to fly (ie. the no-fly list). The government is constrained in what it can do, surveillance and omniscience doesn't change that.

So the economic crisis finally rocks the US to its foundation. A charismatic but authoritarian leader surfaces (let's name him... I don't know, Hutlor?). Common populace vote him out of desperation based on his promises to bring back US to its place in the world.

A few months later Hutlor shows his true face, the government radicalizes and becomes violent. Hutlor's party does NOT like homosexuals. He does not like people posting on Hacker News either. But the average Joe is not homosexual nor a Hacker News reader, so nobody actually cares.

Then Hutlor's right-hand man comes up with a great idea: they'll just take those nice backups that the NSA collected in their huge datacenters and track down homosexuals (and Hacker News users).

Now you're screwed.

With this I mean: it's not the statu quo but whatever the future might bring.

PS: I know, Godwin's law.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#43

Post by hga »

kaoD wrote: post #42
temp453463343 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail." Except that's not the reality. The reality is that if Obama really really hates someone and wants to make their life miserable, the most he can do it make it hard for him to fly (ie. the no-fly list). The government is constrained in what it can do, surveillance and omniscience doesn't change that.

So the economic crisis finally rocks the US to its foundation. A charismatic but authoritarian leader surfaces (let's name him... I don't know, Hutlor?). Common populace vote him out of desperation based on his promises to bring back US to its place in the world. A few months later Hutlor shows his true face, the government radicalizes and becomes violent. Hutlor's party does NOT like homosexuals. He does not like pe…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols

And they'll have a lot of non-homosexual allies, even ones who don't particularly care for homosexuals, for enough of us remember where the pink triangle base of this organization's logo comes from, and even more will learn.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#45

Post by kaoD »

hga wrote: post #43
kaoD wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the economic crisis finally rocks the US to its foundation. A charismatic but authoritarian leader surfaces (let's name him... I don't know, Hutlor?). Common populace vote him out of desperation based on his promises to bring back US to its place in the world. A few months later Hutlor shows his true face, the government radicalizes and becomes violent. Hutlor's party does NOT like homosexuals. He does not like pe…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols And they'll have a lot of non-homosexual allies, even ones who don't particularly care for homosexuals, for enough of us remember where the pink triangle base of this organization's logo comes from, and even more will learn.

Is that even relevant? What are you going to do against the SWAT Anti-Homo unit raiding your home alone in the night? Pretty much nothing.

Are the Pink Pistols going to fight the army too? With pink tanks I guess :P (come on, how stereotypical is the pink reference?)

Also: you completely missed my point. Replace "homosexual" with whichever minority you want. Maybe mexicans? Muslims? And their friends too! Whoever they target, they'll be minority and will smear their name and accuse them of America's illness. Desperate people buy that shit.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#46

Post by baddox »

hga wrote: post #39
baddox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wish he would finish the sentence by filling in the blank: "The government is constrained in what it can do by _______." As soon as you realize that "government" is the only thing filling the blank, you should realize how silly (and scary) the whole scenario is.

Ah, but you can also fill in the blank with "the well armed populace". Maybe not anyone you know, but at least half of the nation, 300+ million guns and more every day. Heck, 2/3rds of the nation lives in shall issue concealed carry regimes, with well over 8 million licenses granted. This puts constraints on a would be out of control government. Let us hope we don't have to file a claim on this insurance policy.

Well, sure, there's always the armed populace, but that is inherently illegal rebellion against the government, and it would be violently resisted by the government. (And, for the record, almost everyone I know owns guns, and that percentage was even higher before I moved to San Francisco.) But even though founding fathers wrote about the inevitability and even duty to violently resist an oppressive government, that's certainly not built into the government's rules for itself (the Constitution). Nowhere in the law does it say that these laws only need to be followed if you believe them to not be oppressive, or that you are free to overthrow the government if you find it oppressive.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#47

Post by hga »

kaoD wrote: post #45
hga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Pistols And they'll have a lot of non-homosexual allies, even ones who don't particularly care for homosexuals, for enough of us remember where the pink triangle base of this organization's logo comes from, and even more will learn.

Is that even relevant? What are you going to do against the SWAT Anti-Homo unit raiding your home alone in the night? Pretty much nothing. Are the Pink Pistols going to fight the army too? With pink tanks I guess :P (come on, how stereotypical is the pink reference?) Also: you completely missed my point. Replace "homosexual" with whichever minority you want. Maybe mexicans? Muslims? And their friends too! Whoever the…

This quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn'a The GULAG Archipelago provides a start:

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?

After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria [Government limo] sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked.

The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

And that's just from a reactionary point defense. Go on the offense---if you're a member of a targeted group, what do you have to lose?---and things get ... interesting.

And when you bring up fighting the army's tanks, you're implying playing the game by the other side's rules. Those of us who are contemplating the awful contingency of a hot civil war have absolutely no intention of doing so.

"Desperate people buy that shit."

And?

Do these desperate people matter at all in such a conflict? Well, they can inform on you, observe you in action or preparation for such, and call the authorities, but otherwise, most people will just want to be left alone.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#48

Post by kaoD »

hga wrote: post #47
kaoD wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that even relevant? What are you going to do against the SWAT Anti-Homo unit raiding your home alone in the night? Pretty much nothing. Are the Pink Pistols going to fight the army too? With pink tanks I guess :P (come on, how stereotypical is the pink reference?) Also: you completely missed my point. Replace "homosexual" with whichever minority you want. Maybe mexicans? Muslims? And their friends too! Whoever the…

This quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn'a The GULAG Archipelago provides a start: " And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quart…

And by wanting to be left alone they'll give power to the wrong people. It won't be them, so it won't matter.

Seriously. The Holocaust DID happen. Or so I'm told. And under the citizen's tolerance (or blindness, who cares).

What game are you going to play? The game of death. There's no game for you to play. You're just killed or sent to a camp and that's it. You won't stand a chance.

Nazi Germany didn't last too long because the US had too much to lose, but the USSR took 69 years to be dismantled... with how many political deaths?

You're being overly optimistic. I wasn't even talking about a civil war. It's the state and most of the population against some unpopular minorities.

Well, even if it was civil war. Do some research on how the last Spanish Civil War turned out for Republicans.

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#49

Post by ryguytilidie »

temp453463343 wrote: post #32
zxcdw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge problem with a surveillance state. Everyone has something which you can use against them. This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail. Otherwise not. Possible implications to politic balance are astounding.

"This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail." Except that's not the reality. The reality is that if Obama really really hates someone and wants to make their life miserable, the most he can do it make it hard for him to fly (ie. the no-fly list). The government is constrained in what it can do, surveillance and omniscience doesn't change that.

Wow, just utterly blown away that someone can live on earth for as many years as you presumably have, and have such a deep, fundamental misunderstanding of how it works...

Re: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy [pdf]

#50

Post by dasil003 »

temp453463343 wrote: post #32
zxcdw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge problem with a surveillance state. Everyone has something which you can use against them. This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail. Otherwise not. Possible implications to politic balance are astounding.

"This means that if you piss off wrong people you're going to jail." Except that's not the reality. The reality is that if Obama really really hates someone and wants to make their life miserable, the most he can do it make it hard for him to fly (ie. the no-fly list). The government is constrained in what it can do, surveillance and omniscience doesn't change that.

The constitution of the country, a document which is paid immense lip service throughout the country, and held in high regard throughout the world, lays out very explicit restrictions of what the government can do. And yet all it takes is a handful of terrorists to kill a couple thousands Americans, and that's all it takes to trample it all into the dirt. That is how trivial it is for terrorists to destroy our freedom as it were. Can you imagine what politicians could get away with if the American people were actually destitute? It's more than a bit terrifying.
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